About the EDPS

In June 2009 the department heads, undergraduate chairs, and curriculum committee chairs in the
Faculty of Engineering and Applied Science held a retreat to discuss future directions for the faculty.
One of the outcomes from the retreat was the desire to create a sequence of courses in design and
professional practice in all years of every undergraduate program. A Curriculum Review Committee was
created, consisting of representatives from all engineering programs in the faculty of engineering,
a student society representative, the Associate Dean, the Director of Program Development, the
NSERC Chair in Engineering Design, and members with economics, library, and professionalism expertise.
The group was tasked with creating what became known as the Engineering Design and Practice Sequence (EDPS).

The committee has created high-level objectives for each year of the sequence, beginning with an existing
engineering practice course, APSC-100, and culminating in the departmental capstone courses. The committee
has developed a pair of second year courses that focus on creativity and idea generation, decision making,
validation, communications, and professional practice.

The CRC draws on considerable experience in offering project-based courses in a variety of disciplines,
including APSC100 (Engineering Practice), APSC 190 (Professional Engineering Skills), MECH212
(Design Techniques), and APSC381 (Fundamentals of Design Engineering. These courses illustrated various ways
and means of teaching and learning design and professional skills at both the faculty-wide and departmental levels.

The CRC established high-level objectives to:

enhance design and innovation capacity of our students

be primarily project based, with appropriate scaffolding in early years to develop project management, design process, teaming, and communications skills

incorporate graduate attribute assessment, required by CEAB

include most of the CEAB accreditation units required for engineering design

ensure that the structure is designed to encourage future multidisciplinary projects

encourage professional behaviour and skills

use peer mentoring to develop leadership and provide support for early year students

The first two years of the EDPS are delivered by faculty-wide project-based courses APSC-100 and APSC-200/293.
The third and fourth years of the sequence are delivered by departments, and tailored to the disciplinary
design and practice approaches.

Year

Courses

Focus

Year 4

Disciplinary

Final capstone project integrating technical and professional skills

Year 3

Disciplinary

Disciplinary project using design tools and processes

APSC-221

Engineering economics and project management

Year 2

APSC-200/293

Design, innovation, communications, and professional practice

Year 1

APSC-100

Introduction to problem solving, investigation, design, and professional practice

More detail about this sequence of courses is described in a recent paper: